1.08.2010

Spiritual Bundle Packs

Time Warner is the local cable service provider in our area.

They offer bundle packages for hi-speed internet, cable tv, and voip phone service; you can pay one bill that includes all of those services. The problem is, you can't have just internet and phone, you have to have the cable service as well to get the discounted rates.

Unfortunately, we have no desire for the television service, and so we can't get the deal on the bundle package.

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Unfortunately the same thing is true of our faith:

I want to follow Jesus, but unfortunately there are other things 'bundled' to following Jesus that I am not interested in 'subscribing' to. But just like people think I am weird for not watching cable, Christians will think you are weird if you don't sign up for the bundle package deal they are attempting to sell.

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Political affiliation, specific stances on social issues, affirming or denying specific activities, these and many others are often bundled together with confidence in Jesus. At some points in recent Church history it was quite common for Christians to think of card-playing as a sin. At other points in Church history it would have been unthinkable to hold a Christian worldview without also perceiving of the universe in the geo-centric astronomical model. This would be humorous if there weren't contemporary equivalents...

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So the real question is, what are the things that I 'bundle' with my faith? Where are the places that I add my own opinions onto those of Jesus? What do I consider essential that Jesus would think peripheral; or that I think peripheral, but Jesus would claim to be central? What do I call good, that my Master would call evil; or those things that I call evil, that my Master would call good?